Glenn Beck has been focused on the Benghazi
tragedy as an example of the dishonor prevalent in Washington, DC. I
agree. The administration has initiated a major cover-up of this scandal
through misdirection and outright lies. Mr. Beck explains this morning
(October 26th, 2012) on his radio show how we must not let the
“pendulum” swing too far to the right or left. We must return the
pendulum to the middle as Abraham Lincoln did. Excuse me? Isn’t this the
same man who has been preaching that we must not have a French
Revolution in the United States?
Mr. Beck’s continued excuses for Lincoln are an example of dishonor. Does anyone want another tyrant who was responsible for:
1. At least 618,000 Americans died in the
Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number
that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any rate, these casualties
exceed the nation’s loss in all its other wars, from the Revolution
through Vietnam.
The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates:
| Battle deaths: |
110,070 |
| Disease, etc.: |
250,152 |
| Total |
360,222 | |
The Confederate strength,
known less accurately because of missing records, was from 750,000 to
1,250,000. Its estimated losses:
| Battle deaths: |
94,000 |
| Disease, etc.: |
164,000 |
| Total |
258,000 |
2. Along
with a declaring martial law, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the
suspension of the constitutionally protected right to writs of habeas
corpus in 1861, shortly after the start of the
American Civil War. At the time, the suspension applied only in Maryland and parts of the Midwestern states.
In response to the arrest of Maryland
secessionist John Merryman by Union troops, then Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court Roger B. Taney defied Lincoln’s order and issued a writ of
habeas corpus demanding that the U.S. Military bring Merryman before
the Supreme Court. When Lincoln and the military refused to honor the
writ, Chief Justice Taney in
Ex-parte MERRYMAN declared Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional. Lincoln and the military ignored Taney’s ruling.
3. Deported women from Georgia to the North because they were traitors: they worked in cotton mills making uniforms.
In July 1864, Union General William T.
Sherman ordered the arrest and deportation of more than 400 women and
children from the villages of Roswell and New Manchester, Georgia.
Branded as traitors for their work in the cotton mills that supplied
much needed material to the Confederacy, these civilians were shipped to
cities in the North (already crowded with refugees) and left to fend
for themselves. This work details the little known story of the
hardships these women and children endured before and–most
especially–after they were forcibly taken from their homes.
Upon this news reaching the North, a New York newspaper wrote: ”It
is hardly conceivable that an officer bearing a United States
commission of Major General should have so far forgotten the commonest
dictates of decency and humanity…as to drive four hundred penniless
girls hundreds of miles away from their homes and friends to seek their
livelihood amid strange and hostile people. We repeat our earnest hope
that further information may redeem the name of General Sherman and our
own from this frightful disgrace.” Sherman said the women
were ”tainted with treason and…are as much governed by the rules of war
as if in the ranks. … The whole region was devoted to manufactories, but
I will destroy every one of them” Another paper wrote ” only think of
it! Four hundred weeping and terrified Ellens, Susans and Maggies
transported in springless and seatless army wagons, away from their
loves and brothers of the sunny South, and all for the offense of
weaving tent-cloth.“ The women were kept in prison until they
signed allegiance to the United States. Those that did sign were
released and sent across the Ohio River; those that didn’t stayed in
prison.
…
Most of the returning Confederate
soldiers died never knowing the whereabouts of their wives, sisters,
children or cousins. Imagine the fate of those expatriated women. How
would they survive, some with children?
4. Theft of private property:
“I have no time for particulars. We have
had a glorious time in this State, Unrestricted license to burn and
plunder was the order of the day. The chivalry have been stripped of
most of their valuables. Gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons,
forks, &c., &c., are as common in camp as blackberries. The
terms of plunder are as follows: The valuables procured are estimated by
companies. Each company is required to exhibit the result of its operations at any given place. One-fifth and first choice
falls to the commander-in-chief and staff, one-fifth to corps commander
and staff, one-fifth to field officers, two-fifths to the company.
Officers are not allowed to join in these expeditions, unless disguised
as privates. One of our corps commanders borrowed a rough suit of
clothes from one of my men, and was successful in his place. He got a
large quantity of silver (among other things an old milk pitcher), and a
very fine gold watch from a Mr. DeSaussure, of this place (Columbia).
DeSaussure is one of the F. F. V.’s of South Carolina, and was made to
fork out liberally.
Officers over the rank of captain are not
made to put their plunder in the estimate for general distribution.
This is very unfair, and for that reason, in order to protect
themselves, the subordinate officers and privates keep everything back
that they can carry about their persons, such as rings, earrings,
breastpins, &c., &c., of which, if I live to get home, I have a
quart. I am not joking. I have at least a quart of jewelry for you and
all the girls, and some No. 1 diamond pins and rings among them. General
Sherman has gold and silver enough to start a bank. His share in gold
watches and chains alone at Columbia was two hundred and seventy-five.
Lincoln’s
“actions were unconstitutional and he knew it,” writes Napolitano, for
“the rights of the states to secede from the Union . . . [are] clearly
implicit in the Constitution, since it was the states that
ratified the Constitution . . .” Lincoln’s view “was a far departure
from the approach of Thomas Jefferson, who recognized states’ rights
above those of the Union.” Judge Napolitano also reminds his readers
that the issue of using force to keep a state in the union was in fact
debated — and rejected — at the Constitutional Convention as part of the “Virginia Plan.”
He
also discusses Lincoln’s Confiscation Act of 1862, under which “any
slaves behind the Union lines were captives of war who were to be freed and transported to countries in the tropics. This was in keeping with Dishonest Abe’s lifelong position (his “White Dream,” according to Ebony magazine managing editor Lerone Bennett, Jr, author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream ) of deporting all blacks from the U.S. “Colonization” was the euphemism that was used for this.
“The
Confiscation Acts,” writes Judge Napolitano, “show that Lincoln did not
have much concern for the slaves. He did not suggest to Congress that
freed slaves should be granted civil rights or citizenship in Northern
states. Once the freed slaves were transported out of the United States,
they would no longer be Lincoln’s problem.” This is also why Lincoln
tinkered with proposals for compensated emancipation in the border
states while they were under U.S. military occupation during the war.
These proposals included immediate deportation of any freed
slaves. He saw the occupation of the border states during the war as an
opportunity to begin ridding the country of “The Africans,” as he
referred to black people, as though they were from another planet. Judge
Napolitano quotes Lincoln in one of his debates with Stephen Douglas as
saying what he repeatedly said throughout his adult life: “I will say
then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any
way the social and political equality of the white and black races —
that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of
Negroes.” “Lincoln was more concerned about the failure of [the
seceding] states to collect tariffs than he was about slavery, ” says
Napolitano.
So what is Glenn Beck advocating? I see no honor in Lincoln or his
Restoring Honor at the feet of Lincoln. I know that Sacred honor and our
founding principles are the only path back to Liberty. We must be
careful not to be led astray by people whose agendas seem to be aligned
with patriots but whose true motives sometimes ring hollow. The surest
path to another French Revolution would be another repeat of the example
shown by Lincoln.
David DeGerolamo
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